Wisdom Words of OSC

"He lay down fully dressed on his bed, not meaning to fall asleep yet. He just needed to think. About what, he wasn't sure.

So instead he thought about nothing. About things in the room. About the athletic trophies in a box in the closet. How much of his life was that? The shelves of books - so much time reading. Neither of them amounted to anything. He ran. He lost or he won. No one remembered a week later. And the books he read - what did that amount to? University people were always so proud of being readers instead of television watchers, but what was the difference, really? It was a one-way transmission. I read, but it made no difference to the writer. He never knew. And when I'm dead, what will it matter the books I read? My memory is where the book ends up, just like the TV show, and when I'm dead, that memory is gone from the world.

Like running the hurdles. Work so hard, jump over every one, fast, high enough but no higher, because you can't afford to hang in the air. And then, when the race is over, you're dripping with sweat, either they beat you or you beat them...and then a couple of guys come out and move the hurdles out of the way. Turns out they were nothing. All that work to jump over them, but now they're gone."

Thank You, NOT!

On their way home from church Abby and Andy saw a stray dog on the freeway. Being from a crazy-for-animals family they stopped and picked it up. It had a tag on it with a website address and a ID number.

They carted the dog home and put it in the garage. Oscar went CRAZY in the house. Abby got the number and Joni looked up the website. After calling the number listed on the site and giving the ID number they got an address. They Googled the address to find out where to return the wayward pup.

Meanwhile Abby had taken out a dish of dog food. No one will ever accuse the Mitchells of cruelty to animals.

As Joni was looking up the address Andy was saying that he should get the reward for picking up the dog. Abby laughed at him and said, "the dog probably was only missing for an hour. I doubt you'll get a reward."

With address in hand they packed the puppy back into the car and went to return him to his family.

They went up to the door, dog on leash, and rang the doorbell.

The door opened.....

A woman looked at them holding her poor lost puppy dog and said.......



"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!" (to the dog, not to Abby and Andy, thank heavens)

She took the dog and Abby and Andy returned home,

without even a thank you,

let alone a reward.

I don’t mind getting out of bed in the morning.
But after that I don’t much want to do anything.

I don’t want to go to work.
At work I don’t want to work.

I don’t want to paint, or write, or talk, or walk.

I don’t feel well.

I don’t feel social.

Maybe a vacation would help.

Or Cymbalta.

June's Gifts

I had this ready on June 30th, but just wasn't in the mood to list my blessings. I probably should have done it anyway, to quit feeling sorry for myself. But instead I allowed myself a couple of days of self-pity. I'm ready to move on.

In June I was thankful:

~in Joni's last semester of school here, on the last basketball team she played on they finally won the championship. They went undefeated, all got along with each other, no big egos or showboats, and Won the big gold trophy. It was a good way to end her college sports career.

~that we have wild bunnies hopping around our front yard. A nice little bunny family consisting of 2 adults and 3 babies (so far). They are fun to watch.

~that we had a record rainfall for June. I loved the weather in June. The cooler, wet climate always makes me feel the best. I have not felt well for the last few days. It's been hot. Me and hot don't get along.

~that we just decided on the spur of the moment to take Oscar to the lake. We were only there about an hour, but it was fun anyway. We laughed ourselves silly watching him try to swim. Big fat little Lhaso Apso bodies are not made for swimming. His little legs would start paddling furiously in the air as Joni lowered him into the water. His body just kept sinking until just his nose was poking up. Then she would help him get into the shallow water where he stood, belly deep, and enjoyed getting cooled off. The downside to this little outing was that it got me in the mood to go camping. My whole family is so busy that they all say they want to go, but nobody seemed to be able to fit it in.

~for some fun memorable ditcher-times with my daughters.

~for David's family being able to come for a visit. Even though the airshow was a little overwhelming for Nathan it was still a fun time having them here. I love my grandbabies.

Ditcher Time on the Taco Bus

I have a fun tradition with my daughters. Every Tuesday at 2:00 we go to lunch together. We call this "Ditcher Time". The reason for the name is due to the fact that actually all four of us should be going to a meeting during that Tuesday 2:00 hour. We started this tradition about 3 years ago. It's great fun. Sometimes there are just 2 or 3 of us, but quite often we are all able to go. We take turns picking the lunch spot. We've eaten at Applebees, Wingers, Baijio, New York Burrito, Wendy's, Fong's, and a few other places. The problems begin when It's Joni's turn to choose. She would never pick a place. If we pressed her, she would tell us she wasn't hungry and was just going along for the ride.

Well, a couple of weeks ago she said that for the next Ditcher Time she wanted to eat at the Taco Bus. A new eating establishment appeared in town in the shape of a bus.




It has an awesome mural painted on the side.



She wanted to go try it out. I have to admit I was less than enthusiastic about climbing aboard this vehicle to have lunch, but that's part of Ditcher Time, going where-ever.

We pulled up to the bus yesterday at 2:00. As soon as we stopped the car we noticed about 5 guys all lined up at the bus windows staring at us. I felt a little weird, I was in a dress, after all, not exactly dressed for the casual dining a taco bus inspires. We made Joni get on the bus first, since it was her idea, and we all cowered along behind. Joni very bravely got on and said to the gawking guys, "So, how does this thing work?" The guys all pointed to a counter close to the back of the bus that separated the "dining area" from the "kitchen". We all marched back and placed our orders at the counter. Then we found our seats. The original bus seats had been removed and replaced with a long counter right beneath the windows. There was a long bench in front of the counters, so you sat on the bench facing the windows. Now we understood why all those guys seemed to be staring us down.

Since there was a row of bench/counters going down each side of the bus, it was a little cramped. When you finished ordering and tried to make your way back to the bench the other people behind you in line had to try to get out of your way.

As we were sitting on the benches we watched a lady pull up in her car, (now we were the ones gawking at her!), and climb the steps to enter the bus. She immediately started talking to us. "I hear this is a pretty good place to eat." There must be something about the intimacy of sharing a taco bus that breaks down social barriers that inhibit strangers from randomly conversing with each other.

The food was great! And very reasonably priced. And we had a great time. We just may make another trip back to
the taco bus

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig

All right, all right. I will tell the story of the bunnies. You can quit begging. There's only so much of that a person can stand.

I thought about naming this "True Confessions" but I thought I might get a bunch of hits looking for something a little wilder than a bunny tale. The confession will come later. First of all I'll tell you about the baby.

We have "wild" bunnies in our yard. They are loose and fend for themselves. For about 20 years they mostly stayed over in our next door neighbors yard, but for some reason about a month ago a couple of them moved into our front yard.

Last night Mike was mowing the lawn, his favorite past-time since all it involves is sitting and driving. Not too much manual labor involved. All of a sudden he started hollering and yelling. We were all in the house and couldn't understand a thing he was saying, but his tone of voice was very excited and urgent. Of course Oscar picked up on that and began to frantically run around the house barking and pawing at the doors. Finally I understood what Mike was yelling.

"Don't let Oscar out! Whatever you do, don't let Oscar out!!!"
I almost opened the door to ask Mike what he was yelling about, and Oscar surely would have escaped. It's a good thing I went to our big picture window and asked him through the screen instead.

Mike then told us there was a tiny little bunny under Andy's car. After a little while we saw it hop out onto the lawn, keeping close to it's mother. It was so tiny I thought it was just a little bunch of grass where the lawnmower had dropped some. The other rabbits are monster sized. They live the good life feasting on 5 acres of grass.

This morning I really wanted to see the baby up close. I walked around very quietly. I saw the hole which the adults had built a few weeks ago, but no luck with spotting the baby.



I told the girls that if they saw it while I was at work they were to get some pictures with my camera. Sure enough, as soon as I left a baby bunny came out and feasted. Abby got some good close shots of it. It was a different one than I had seen the night before. This one was brown. Last night's baby was grey with spots.



Tonight I thought it might come out again. I took a lawn chair, my camera, a bottle of water, and my sketchbook out to sit quietly and wait. There was one adult munching happily on the grass, not too concerned about the lady in the chair.



I spent some time sketching it as it moved around, changing positions and keeping a watchful eye out for any danger.



Mike saw me out there and brought Oscar out on a leash to keep me company. That was not exactly what I wanted as I knew the mother would never bring out her tiny baby with this excited canine lurking about. But it was still relaxing sitting out in the shade, sketching. I sketched some of Oscar, who never took his eyes off the big bunny 30 feet away.

I never did see the baby. I'm hopeful that I'll get a glimpse and some more pictures tomorrow.

Now for the confession.

The bunnies were originally ours. We got them for our kids for Easter,when they were little, about 20 years ago. The kids kept forgetting to lock the cages and the 2 bunnies kept escaping. I got so tired of catching the dang things and locking them back up that I just let them stay free. They moved to the neighbors back yard and thrived. We never told the neighbors where they came from. They are very protective of them and consider them almost like pets. I can't really see the need to tell them of our part in their origins.

So, I can't really complain when some of our pet's great-great-great-great.............. (well, you get the picture) grandkids, come back to their roots.

So Many Good Stories.....

What should I write about today.

~ About the tiny little bunny that's hopping and eating it's way through my flower garden, and how it's mamma is keeping a close watch for that killer cat that we affectionately call Burns?

~ About the lovely little luncheon I had today with my 3 lovely daughters on the lovely taco bus?

~ About the Indianapolis speedway in my front yard?

~ About Oscar's swimming foray?

~ About having to choose between hot air balloons, a fifer, a death ride or nothing, and nothing may be winning the vote?

Decisions, decisions. What's the vote? What should I write about?